Could well be that it's because you live in the sticks that you see the images the city offers. I used to spend a fortune in client money looking for and working in and on "exotic" locations and beaches; a couple of years after moving to this island permanently, after having driven down every deserted, coastal track that allowed a little car to use, all in the name of discovering that something photographically special, I reached the stage where I stopped going to the beach at all unless there was a job on.

After I retired, the only thing that took me down to the sea was going out on friends' boats.

Sailing the Med was nice, probably still is, but the downside is that lotus eating saps the drive to go look for work if there is a softer alternative available calling you on the telephone line of a morning...

Yep, there is a price to pay for everything, even if it seems free at the time.

And all these years later, local blindness is pretty much absolute. That's really the reason most of us went abroad to work when we could: it switched us on again.

The only exception of whom I know is Sarah Moon: she has stated several times that she feels no wish to work outwith Paris. Considering her style, ability and no doubt location, I think I understand. Maybe Leiter was close, but he did travel away from home a bit for fashion magazines.

Could well be that it's because you live in the sticks that you see the images the city offers. I used to spend a fortune in client money looking for and working in and on "exotic" locations and beaches; a couple of years after moving to this island permanently, after having driven down every deserted, coastal track that allowed a little car to use, all in the name of discovering that something photographically special, I reached the stage where I stopped going to the beach at all unless there was a job on.

After I retired, the only thing that took me down to the sea was going out on friends' boats.

Sailing the Med was nice, probably still is, but the downside is that lotus eating saps the drive to go look for work if there is a softer alternative available calling you on the telephone line of a morning...

Yep, there is a price to pay for everything, even if it seems free at the time.

And all these years later, local blindness is pretty much absolute. That's really the reason most of us went abroad to work when we could: it switched us on again.

The only exception of whom I know is Sarah Moon: she has stated several times that she feels no wish to work outwith Paris. Considering her style, ability and no doubt location, I think I understand. Maybe Leiter was close, but he did travel away from home a bit for fashion magazines.

Yes, I couldn't agree more; indifference is often the result of too much familiarity with something. It can blight relationships as it can anything else, if one is not careful or, better, extraordinarily lucky.

I suppose that a way around it is to think up some project or another, anything, really, just to try and keep the juices, or at least the memory of them, going. Snag is, after doing it a few times, you reach that awful moment of realisation that it's all been just another substitute.

The same thing can happen if you work in a studio for too long at a time. That bloody roll of Colorama ends up taunting and haunting until you just have to go out and do something else.

I am fortunate in that where I live there are dramatic seasonal changes. It's like being in a new place! I also started taking photos at night to give me new ideas without having to travel, and that worked too. Finally, I like to use really old camera gear. Each vintage gives its own look to things, and often requires a new approach to an old subject.

Yes, I couldn't agree more; indifference is often the result of too much familiarity with something. It can blight relationships as it can anything else, if one is not careful or, better, extraordinarily lucky.

I suppose that a way around it is to think up some project or another, anything, really, just to try and keep the juices, or at least the memory of them, going. Snag is, after doing it a few times, you reach that awful moment of realisation that it's all been just another substitute.

The same thing can happen if you work in a studio for too long at a time. That bloody roll of Colorama ends up taunting and haunting until you just have to go out and do something else.

Rob, I can never decide what is the more important, the travelling or the photography. What I do know is the one would be all the poorer without the other. Our time is increasingly spent exploring pastures new, processing the images from our travels for print and web and researching cultures and destinations for future forays. When not doing this we are busy getting our lives back into order and following our other passions. Oh, and another thing I almost forgot, wasting our time online ;-)

Seriously, I can't help feeling I'd be diluting my passion for photography by thinking up projects to keep my eye in or fill my time.

Apart from the business of finding a subject that intrigues you, there's another matter: do you ever feel any sense of guilt about leaving all that good photographic equipment lying unused?

It's something that has started to impress itself onto my consciousness of late. There are two main emotions: the idea that I am letting quite a lot of money (relatively speaking, of course) do nothing but grow ever more obsolete, and the more generous one - to my surprise - that tells me that some poor student would find a lot more to do with it all than do I. This may be bullshit: perhaps today's "poor young student" wouldn't be seen dead using a D200 and D700. If so, then I'd only have one level of conscience about which to feel any concern.

In a way, the same feelings have crept into my head regarding the car. I used to drive pretty much everywhere but, recently, I find that I walk a lot more, despite the heat getting pretty damned oppressive. Of course, much of the incentive is due to three different cardios telling me that I need at least an hour's steady walk every day, but nonetheless, the little-used car looks at me like a bad conscience. But, when I need it, there is no alternative.

Apart from the business of finding a subject that intrigues you, there's another matter: do you ever feel any sense of guilt about leaving all that good photographic equipment lying unused?

It's something that has started to impress itself onto my consciousness of late. There are two main emotions: the idea that I am letting quite a lot of money (relatively speaking, of course) do nothing but grow ever more obsolete, and the more generous one - to my surprise - that tells me that some poor student would find a lot more to do with it all than do I. This may be bullshit: perhaps today's "poor young student" wouldn't be seen dead using a D200 and D700. If so, then I'd only have one level of conscience about which to feel any concern.

In a way, the same feelings have crept into my head regarding the car. I used to drive pretty much everywhere but, recently, I find that I walk a lot more, despite the heat getting pretty damned oppressive. Of course, much of the incentive is due to three different cardios telling me that I need at least an hour's steady walk every day, but nonetheless, the little-used car looks at me like a bad conscience. But, when I need it, there is no alternative.

The things that preoccupy one.

Well, I do use the cameras in the UK but nowhere near as intensively as I do when travelling.

But in answer to your question, no, unfortunately I've other far more important things to feed my sense of guilt.

Well, I do use the cameras in the UK but nowhere near as intensively as I do when travelling.

But in answer to your question, no, unfortunately I've other far more important things to feed my sense of guilt.

Well, that makes you pretty normal!

Myself, I have an almost unlimited capacity for guilt - some deserved, but much just the result of too little else on the mind. There's a part of me that half-believes that if I worry about it now, there will be something less to have to carry into the next dimension.

Rob, I can never decide what is the more important, the travelling or the photography. What I do know is the one would be all the poorer without the other. Our time is increasingly spent exploring pastures new, processing the images from our travels for print and web and researching cultures and destinations for future forays. When not doing this we are busy getting our lives back into order and following our other passions. Oh, and another thing I almost forgot, wasting our time online ;-)

Seriously, I can't help feeling I'd be diluting my passion for photography by thinking up projects to keep my eye in or fill my time.

Keith, you do some wonderful work in faraway places.

Having said that, let me point out that a time will come when the question whether travel or photography is more important will become moot. If you continue photographing at an age where travel becomes too difficult to enjoy, photography will become a search for significance in what's around you, rather than what's out there in distant parts of the world. Rob's talked about this problem on LuLa more than once, and Gene Smith faced it in spades, though in his case the problem was a loss of physical capacity rather than age.

But what Gene did, and what Rob's been doing is turn his attention to what's there -- close by. I don't doubt you'll do the same thing because I can see in your work that, bottom line, the images are more important to you than visiting distant parts of the world.

I'd dearly love to go back to Southeast Asia, get on a boat and make a trip up the Mekong, shooting pictures all the way. But at eighty-eight that's out of the question. Instead, I walk the little river in front of my house and look for those less dramatic but equally significant signs of the love that's there in creation. You'll do something like that too, just as Rob has done and Gene did. "As From My Window, Sometimes Glance..."

"...significant signs of the love that's there in creation." - by Russ.

That's a beautiful way both to describe and to see it.

I'm pretty poor at photographing it well in natural creation - in fact even in seeing it beyond the simple marvel of life itself - but find it all around (in the shape of personal interest) within the constructs and juxtapositions of the man-made place we inhabit. Besides the sometimes beautiful, there is also some sort of unintended energy just below the surface of many such fragments of daily life.

I don't think that they are all in the same language; what others discover sometimes lands here on an uncomprehending ear and, I guess, everyone finds the same possibilities of non-communication.

One of the problems of travel, other than cost and state of health, is that photography would usually take up parts of the day, leaving the other hours as pretty empty. Of course, that's just my condition, but it's what I would find myself facing. Evenings alone at home have become the norm, now, but finding myself in a different environment, without the easy alternatives of just going online, watching an episode of something or even playing with PS, could make travel less than the pleasant experience it certainly used to be when travel nights were all about eating and drinking well, toys no part of the equation, there being precious little time for them anyway.

One of the problems of travel, other than cost and state of health, is that photography would usually take up parts of the day, leaving the other hours as pretty empty. Of course, that's just my condition, but it's what I would find myself facing. Evenings alone at home have become the norm, now, but finding myself in a different environment, without the easy alternatives of just going online, watching an episode of something or even playing with PS, could make travel less than the pleasant experience it certainly used to be when travel nights were all about eating and drinking well, toys no part of the equation, there being precious little time for them anyway.

On family vacations in the past, my wife & kids were always content to go back to the hotel after dinner and either watch TV or play on their computer. I saw this as a wasted opportunity (and still do.) I figure I paid a lot of money to be somewhere and it's novelty strongly calls to me! So, I began taking photos at night. I found it not hard at all and for me it's more fun than taking photos in the daytime. If I were traveling alone there's a good chance I would become largely nocturnal.